Lately I have especially been thinking about responsibility. Not just responsibility to motivate ourselves to lace up those shoes and get out the door or to push ourselves to our limits in a workout. But the responsibility to listen to our bodies, to honor the necessary recovery, to make the time for cross training and strength training and stretching and nourishing our bodies, our minds and our spirits. To dedicate ourselves to the BIG PICTURE - to a BALANCED life - and to make sure that we do not develop tunnel vision as we pursue our goals.
To remember to have a PURPOSE to every run.
Because I think when we get tunnel vision, we can really lose sight of so much that is going on around us and even inside of us. We can become very off balanced, possibly losing the connection to the meaning behind the goal we are working so hard to achieve.
Driving so hard towards something sometimes causes us to forget why we are heading on that path in the first place.
It does for me, anyway.
Today is the last day of February and goodness knows that I have spent the first two months of 2013 working hard. I have gotten up early, run in the rain and the wind and the COLD and the dark. I have run hard on the treadmill, run long on the treadmill. I have pushed myself at the track. I have shown up and gotten the job DONE time and time again. I have done my strength training workouts and my foam rolling sessions. Never making excuses. Already in 2013 I have logged over 570 miles for the year - in just two months - which is a ton of miles for me.
The thing is though, I am very well aware that something has been missing for me lately ... and for the last few weeks I have been doing a lot of soul-searching and balance-seeking to figure it out and to reconnect myself to my PURPOSE. To press that internal reset button and truly listen to and honor what my heart is telling me. I am not going to just go through the motions to get things done - that is not the responsible way. My heart needs to be in it, my passion needs to be igniting all that I do.
March is going to be a good month. I am dedicating myself to balance and to openness. I am pouring the passion on thick. I am awake and I am listening.
I am responsible.